See how we go this time
Hope i didnt leave anything out.
Saturday, January 15, 1898
GROSS CRUELTY TO A CHILD AT LOUGHBOROUGH
HUNG UP BY STRAPS
CRAMMED IN A CUPBOARD
At the Loughbourough petty sessions on Wednesday before Mr S Wells [in the chair]The Mayor Ald Tidd, Messers U Goodacre, P Winsor, J G Shields, James Hall, labourer no fixed address was charged by Inspector Barnes, NSPCC with cruelly ill treating a female child, aged 2 years on November 14. Mr H J Deane prosecuted for the society and said this was not a case of cruelty by neglect or indifference of parents but one of actual violence by the prisioner. This child was 2 years old and no relation to the prisoner as far as could be ascertained nor of the woman whom he cohabited. But he had the custardy of the child and was responsible for her. He had been tramping between Loughborough, Leicester, and Derby, and at varous times he and the woman had stayed at the Model Lodging House Loughborough and on several occasions he had treated the child with great cruelty. This culminated on Fair Saturday and Sunday when he treatment of the girl was so bad that the female deputy at the lodging house complained to the police. The prisoner left the town the same day and was arrested on a warrant on Tuesday last. After describing the acts of cruelity which would be proved by the witness Mr Deane said he thought the bench would have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that this was a case in which a penalty should be inflicted as would show the prisioner and men like him that even children who did not belong to them could not be treated as this child had been,.
Martha Haywood female deputy at the Model said that on Fair Saturday about noon she saw the prisioner kick the child against the sink causing a bruise on the forehead the size of a half crown. On Sunday witness saw him hang the child up by a belt around her waist from a nail in the beam. It hung there for five minutes face down afraid to cry and witness added " The child is in court and full of measles as it can be" Prisoner - Its only a cold it got the last day or two.- Witness, continuing said there is a small cupboard in the kitchen. and witness had seen him push the child into it, doubling up its head and limbs to get it in. He kept it there for tow hours. On varous occasions witness had heard in the bedroom occupied by the man, woman and child, a sound as of a strap had been used and a child crying.
Mr Winsor- Were there no other people present when he did all this? - Yes.- And they did not try to stop him? - It seemed to amuse them.
The Magisstrate's Clerk ; Didnt you people want to take it out? - The misses of the lodging house fetched it out but he repeated it. Witness had repeatedly stopped the man from ill treating the child. - Prisoner: I could get into the cupboard myself.
Ellen Marshall, wife of Herbert Marshall living near the Model said that on Fair Saturday November 13 the child fell down in the kitchen the prisioner slapped it for falling. He followed it to the yard, kicked it in the back, and it fell against the sink, wounding its forehead. Prisioner took it back into the house and made it lie on a form saying if it got up he would kill it. The child lay still for a while and then moved, the prisoner slapped it, and made it lie down again. The man was quiet sober on these occasions.
Mary Sheriff, who said she was 78 last October, and walked all the way to Whitwick on Tuesday and had been fetched back by police was the next witness. At the fair time she said she was staying at the Model and knew the prisioner and the woman with him and the child " little Mary Ann". Witness went on to describe how she saw prisoner turn his wife out and put the baby on the floor. Then he took the little baby put a strap under her little jaws and around her head and hung her up for two or three minutes. After that he put her little hands together and tied the strap around them and hung her up again. The other people in the room had a hearty good laugh but witness hid her face in her hands and could not look.
Inspector Agar, deposed that ? ?? the prisoner on a warrant on Tuesday at the ? Lodging House. He told him what the charge was and prisioner said - " Who's going to give me away?" Witness said he thought the old woman was going to give evidence against him. Prisoner remarked " Thats after giving her two two-pennorths.
Inspector Barnes said he had measured the cupboard referred to and found it was 13 inches deep, 12 inches wide, 27 inches long. It would be impossible to get the child in without doubling its knees up to its head. The cupboard was by the side of the fireplace where a roaring fire was always on the way and it would be very hot. It was used for drying fire wood. Witness saw the man's wife in Loughbourgh three weeks ago looking for him, and she told him that they purchased the child at Derby for the purpose of getting their living by it and it did not belong to the prisoner.
Prisoner was proceeding to dispute this statement when the Magistrate's clerk remarked it was not evidence against him and he would be wise not to ask questions as to make it evidence.
